


Falling

by deo-agent (WillowRoseBrook)



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alex is also falling, F/M, Red Kryptonite, Unrequited Love, mid-episode
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-26
Updated: 2016-07-26
Packaged: 2018-07-26 23:17:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7594273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WillowRoseBrook/pseuds/deo-agent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mid-Episode drabble for "Falling," the Red Kryptonite episode. Starts from where Alex captures the hostile K'Hund, ends before Max Lord admits to manufacturing the kryptonite.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Falling

**Author's Note:**

> Un beta'd, written and published quickly, so there may be a few errors.

She was bruised and battered and more shaken than she’d like to admit as she watched the K’Hund disappear around the corner. She turned to Hank with a steely sigh, hands at her hips. They didn’t speak for a moment, just stared almost through each other, the implications of what was beginning to unfold settling heavily in the silence. She bit her lip and breathed deeply again, then pivoted on one foot and started back down the hall.

Alex didn’t know quite what to think. Her first instinct was always to defend Kara at all costs, but something was definitely up. She flipped through their recent conversations in her mind as she paged aimlessly through files on her computer, the intention to begin her report on the capture of the K’Hund somewhere in the back of her mind. Nothing had really changed, save for Kara. Tuesday night they’d had pizza at her place, and Kara had laughed and reheated it with her X-Ray vision, teasing Alex mercilessly when she admitted that yes, okay, James Franco was kind of cute. Flash forward to this morning, and she was still the same Kara as ever, holding back with James even after the day she knew they’d had, even though Lucy had left him. That was the only inciting point she could think of, but she knew Kara, and Kara wasn’t vindictive or surly. If she was angry at Alex, or even James, she wouldn’t let that blow over into her work.

There was that nagging worry in the back of Alex’s mind that this was still about Astra, but even that couldn’t answer all the questions Alex had.

Alex was a very self-aware person. She hadn’t always been, but working for the DEO had changed that. She knew her demeanor. She knew her tendencies and her coping mechanisms. She knew, as she rose to her feet, that violence wasn’t the answer, and beating the living crap out of a punching bag wasn’t going to do much to help her situation. She knew, as she swung by Hank’s office and declared, “I’m going to kick things, if you want to join me,” that she was procrastinating and blowing off steam, and replacing an actual conversation with her sister with the relief of something physical. She knew there was something less obvious eating at her, too, something that struggled to reveal itself even as she dipped her head to the Senator as she hurried down the hall. She couldn’t bring herself to care.

It had been terrifying when she had first joined the DEO. She had spent her life thus far as a scientist, and was used to an easy brilliance. The concentration it had taken to _kick, strike, shoot,_ had been nerve-wracking at first, but over the years it had become hypnotic. She struck the pad in a series of rapid beats, her back to J’onn as he did the same across the room. She fought viciously against nothing until she was exhausted, then sank back into an easy routine of punches, though her knuckles were bruised and sore.

“I don’t think,” she panted in between sets, “he was lying. The K’Hund.” At some point, J’onn had stopped, and now he sat against the wall watching her, silent but knowing. “I don’t know why. I can’t explain why. But something is going on.”

“We’ll fix it,” he replied, steady, and Alex finally gave up the fight and took a seat on the floor beside him, brushing a strand of hair out of her face, panting.

“I don’t even know where to start.”

“Neither do I.”

The silence held for a while, minutes, as Alex took a sip from her water bottle and leaned back against the wall. She ran through theories in her head: biological, alien, personal. She could think more clearly now than she had in the lab, her body exhausted and almost relaxed, the comfortable silence of Hank next to her.

“Director?” The door opened. Alex glanced up. “Senator Crane would like to speak with you.”

J’onn got to his feet and tipped his head to Alex as he exited and Alex brought her arm up over her head to stretch.

_One, two, three,_ she counted in her head. _Breathe, Alex._

But she was back up on her feet before she could really think, beating into the pad with renewed energy and an angry cry, with a pent up frustration she hadn’t let loose before.

With all the things going on right now, she berated herself, of all the things, it was Senator Miranda Crane with her full smile and soft curled hair, the newly _reformed_ Senator Miranda Crane, that she couldn’t just breathe through.

_“Be the let-him-know girl,”_ she had told Kara that morning. “ _Before another Lucy Lane swoops in.”_

Before an unlikely Senator _Crane_ swoops in.

But it wasn’t _like_ that with her and J’onn.

Five strikes later she stepped abruptly away, sitting back down at the wall.        

She and J’onn weren’t carefree twenty-somethings with a bright and shining world ahead of them. But that had made it easier for Alex. The words were never to be spoken, but she’d never see him taken from her either. It was the only benefit to being in an unrequited love with a celibate, centuries old Martian. She and he had something together, untouched by romance or sex, purely love, a deep bond of friendship that was recognized by all.

All but, apparently, Crane.

She had it all justified to herself, she realized. Did J’onn ever think about them in the same way?

She drew herself to her feet and flicked the lights out, exiting the training room. She wandered back to her lab and pulled up her folder of case-files that included Supergirl. She sifted through her own words, dating back months, looking for some kind of tell, a hint to what was going on.

“Danvers.”

She looked up to find Hank standing at her door. She got to her feet.

“We have to do something about Kara.”

“I know. I reviewed the footage. She let him go.”

“Let’s fix this.”

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written for this fandom in awhile, so I rewatched an episode and started with a short drabble to get back into it. Hopefully more updates from me on my other series coming soon!


End file.
